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This chapter offers an experience-based report about the development of the first Scandinavian PhD program in tourism studies at Mid-Sweden University. This process is documented through a framework which, rather than having the coherence of a single clearly bounded discipline, focuses on tourism as a study area encompassing multiple disciplines. Tourism knowledge is derived through a synthesis of fact-oriented positivist methodologies and critical theory. The theoretical framework employed to develop the graduate program in tourism studies is presented by critically discussing its multidisciplinary base and briefly outlining future veins of further development.

En mars 1974, le Conseil de planification et de développement du Québec soumettait un avis intitulé: «Vers une industrie touristique au Québec : éléments d'une stratégie de développement». Le rapport soumettait un certain nombre de recommandations au sujet des orientations que devrait prendre le développement futur du tourisme au Québec, s'il voulait promouvoir et favoriser également les intérêts sociaux et les intérêts économiques des résidents de la province. Ces recommandations contenaient aussi un certain nombre de propositions précises sur le plan d'action souhaitable, en vue d'augmenter l'efficacité des secteurs public et privé dans le développement du tourisme. Finalement, le rapport énumérait un certain nombre de secteurs stratégiques qui, de l'avis des experts, comportaient de grands avantages dans le développement du tourisme, mais au sujet desquels très peu d'information était disponible pour seconder les planificateurs et les administrateurs intéressés par le sujet.

This paper aims to better understand museums’ image. The study examined the influence of visitors’ socio-demographic (gender, social class), tripographic (party group, previous experience with the museum and timing of the decision to visit the museum) and geographic characteristics (national – international visitors), on the different components and dimensions of perceived museums’ image (cognitive and affective) in a major tourism destination.

This research focussed on museums located on Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). The population of the study included museum attendees who visited the main museums of the island (13 museums). The selection of respondents (252) was made following a systematic random sampling at the exit gate of the museums.

The repeat visitors and those who plan the visit in advance were found to have a more positive museums’ image for both the cognitive and the affective components of museum image. There was also a positive influence of party group on the cognitive and affective dimensions of image, whereas families showed a less positive image. In addition, there were significant relationships between the visitors’ socio-demographic characteristics of gender, and social class, and the affective and cognitive components of image – women and higher classes achieving a better image. National visitors also showed a more positive image on both the cognitive and affective components of museum image. Six image dimensions were found and specific effects on each are discussed.

This study adds to the growing literature on museums for a better understanding of the perceived image of this cultural product (museums) at the destination, and how it can be managed according to the profile of their publics. Additionally, it considers the different dimensions of museums’ image: quality of visitation experience, convenience and functionality, price, general appearance, museum shop and affective image.

This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into an emerging postdisciplinary focus on embodied cosmopolitanism(s) as a promising way forward in tourism studies. Cosmopolitan paradigms theorize the dialectics of cultural diversity and universal rights, while feminist cosmopolitanism focuses on gender and sexuality equality and difference within this intersection. An embodied approach combines work on “the body” and “situated embodiment” with the cosmopolitan to embrace all human differences and acknowledge that the researchers’ own embodied cosmopolitanism affects research questions, ethics, and praxis toward transformation in research communities and the academy.

This chapter presents an innovative learning opportunity for tourism students, International Tourism and Hospitality Academy at Sea, that has been in operation for the last 10 years. The program could render itself as a case study of Kolb’s experiential learning theory according to which knowledge is created by transforming experience. Its uniqueness and complexity lie in its diversity. This program has involved between 80 and 130 tourism students yearly from four to six institutions from different countries participating in new scholarly inputs by non-resident professors and instructors.